"I Wanna Be Sedated,” Melissa Ford Lucken

Today on Midwest Weird: “I Wanna Be Sedated," by Melissa Ford Lucken.

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Melissa Ford Lucken holds an MA in Special Education from Eastern Michigan University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lasell University. She is a professor of creative writing and composition at Lansing Community College, where she serves as the fiction and creative non-fiction editor of The Washington Square Review, the college’s literary journal.

Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions. We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

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Episode Transcript:

This is Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions.

We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

Today’s episode: "I Wanna Be Sedated." Read by the Midwest Weird team.

Let’s say its 1980 and you live in Detroit. Let’s say you’re one of the poser assholes who saw “Rock ‘n Roll High School” then thought you knew everything about punk music and the punk scene, so you decided to go see the Ramones at the Motor City Roller Rink. You wanted to be cool. You wanted to think you were better than the losers whose dashboards were stacked with AC/DC and Journey cassettes.

Let’s say you showed up at that show in March, expecting to see those girls from the movie. You know, the ones in the skintight pink leopard print tops, smiling with their glossy lips and smelling like Love’s Baby Soft. Maybe you planned to hang with the jocks, pogoing in the mosh pit. You wanted to be one of them, jumping and down, shaking your moussed up, Supercuts hairstyle.

Let’s say you were me.

Maybe if I’d told what I saw that night back then, we all could’ve found a way to stop them. At least been ready.

But I didn’t tell no one.

And now that it’s too late, I’m telling you.

Maybe you are a better version of me. Maybe you would’ve been that same better version back then. Maybe.

In November 1979, I got on a northbound Greyhound and went to Warren, Michigan--my aunt’s Michelle’s house. She was cool enough and didn’t fuck with me about my dad moving in with my mom’s sister the way he did. As you can imagine, my home life sucked about that time. Just getting to school and back was an ordeal. Never mind trying to sleep. It was my senior year, and I was near being done with that government education, such as it was, there in Baton Rouge. My plan was to stay the year up north, get the diploma, then take myself down to New Orleans. I had some friends who wanted to get a place. We’d wait tables for money to drink, hit up the tourists for whatever else we wanted. You know what I mean.

So, I wasn’t all that invested in making friends in Michigan. I only cared about two things: getting that diploma and a having a good time. Wait. I cared about three things. The third being getting the hell out of the grimy, grey place they all called a city. That night in March, I rolled in to the Motor City Roller Rink with some guys from school. Poser assholes. But what the fuck did I care? One kid had a truck, the other, a twelve of Meister Bräu and a juicy joint he’d lifted from his sister. We’d downed the beer on the way, lit up once we parked. Buzzed, I climbed out, hung back to lose them, then went in.

Devo was on, doing Girl U Want. I didn’t give a shit about their white jumpsuits, but those asinine red bowls on their heads, I couldn’t fuck with that. I stood around for a bit, feeling the high and trying to check out until the Ramones. On stage, Devo did Satisfaction. I looked around. The crowd had swelled. A body-to-body crush vibrating behind me. I turned back, scanning the mob. It was easy to see who else was waiting for Johnny and the rest. That crowd circled around back, wearing torn Levi’s, a haze of weed smoke floating above them, casting shadows on their grim faces. Their fuck-this-new-wave-shit expressions made sense to me. The wall of bodies was tight, dense. Like there was another world beyond them, and they were guarding it. About the time Secret Agent Man hit the air, I backed up, shoving into that wall with my elbows, kicking through to the middle, then settled in, tight. Where I belonged. When the boys hit the stage, and I finally got the fun time I can for, I’d be ready to slam.

A girl with a bleach blonde hair, wearing a The Jam t-shirt pooped in from the back appeared on my right side and jabbed me with her elbow. Her face was ghost white, her lips pale. She raised her hand, a joint between her thumb and forefinger. I took it, pulled deep, locked my lungs down, handed the joint back. She smiled, as least I think that’s what it was, put the tip between her lips, eyeing me steadily while she inhaled. Then she opened her mouth, ran her tongue around her lips, snapped her teeth together and let the smoke out through her nose in a long, slow stream. Fuckin’ A, it was hot. About that time, a guy popped through from behind, loitered on my left side. She reached across me, passing the joint to him with a nod, then moved away, shoving backward into the mob of long-hairs in studded leathers. Not men. Not women. Just bodies. I watched her until the top of her blonde head disappeared.

The guy took a drag, grinned, lifting his square jaw. My head swam, the bodies around me lost their edges, but when he offered the joint for a second pull I took it. He grinned so wide his teeth flashed, two rows of hard white points. A shiver rolled down my back. I think maybe the man was laughing. Maybe he wasn’t.

What the fuck did I know. I couldn’t see shit and the top of my head had floated off, split into a hundred and sixteen pieces, leaving my brain exposed. Fresh and throbbing.

On stage they started in on Freedom of Choice.

The man, yelled in my face, shouting, asked me if I liked it.

I had no idea what the hell he was asking about but I said yeah. I was getting the wild time I came for. And fuck yeah, I liked it. His teeth flashed again as he turned his back on the Devo scene up front and pointed to the long-hairs, jabbing his finger to indicate a break in the crowd about where the girl had gone through. He moved in that direction, forcing himself between the bodies. I followed, going through, shoving deeper, giving in to the press of human flesh. Deeper into the crowd. Deeper still until I came thought that other side of the wall, into that world they were hiding. Protecting.

It should’ve been hot back there. Sweaty. It should’ve smelled like bodies.

I didn’t know the smell back then. Didn’t think much of it.

I know it now. And I think about it.

So do you.

Hands came out of nowhere, touching me, raking through my hair, grabbing at my shirt, sliding into my pants. You want to know if they were men’s hands. Or were they women’s. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. They were just hands. Cold. Bony. Pinching. Poking. That shiver in my spine fucked me up, turned to a quiver in my gut, turned into a shake in my thighs.

The hands surrounded me. Stroking. Pulling.

I hit a wall, turned so my back was flat against it. The hands fell down, the bodies turned away. Devo was off. The new-wavers had probably booked. Too lame to see a real punk band. But I couldn’t see through the crowd of Midwestern boys, the long-hairs and their girls, to know whether or not they’d left, so who the fuck knows. A Clash album blared from the speakers, and yeah, I liked that. A guy stood on one side of me, his mouth hanging open, head rolled back. A girl stood on the other side, looking even more stoned, arms dangling at her sides, her eyes slits. Gone. Just gone. The vibrations in the wall rolled through me, and my eyes drifted shut. Felt good. I wondered if I’d imagined the hands, the cold haze hanging overhead. But not the high.

That wasn’t my imagination. Felt good. I eased into the buzz until the opening riff of Sheena Is a Punk Rocker made the wall hum. I opened one eye. It wasn’t the chill in the air that made my blood turn to ice. It was the teeth.

Chattering. Nipping. Tapping. White. Smeared with blood.

The long-hairs and their girls had circled a girl wearing a plaid school-girl skirt. They’d torn off her grey t-shirt and bra and gnawed a whole in her stomach, pulled her intestines out, and were fighting over them, sucking the tendrils in between their teeth. One went after a tit, biting at the nipple, ripping it off then tipping back, swallowing. Another went after what remained of the other breast, seeming to suck at the jagged skin hanging in tatters from her bloody chest. Thin smears of pink spiraled down her calves. The floor was smeared with her blood and because she hadn’t fallen yet, her own feet, booted in a shiny pair of black Doc Martins, skidded in her own blood. She probably would’ve screamed if she’d still had a throat.

The bass riff of All the Way rolled into the room. The air vibrated, a guitar tore into song. Miles away, up on the stage, Joey sang about being crazy and wanting to have fun. The sides of my head drifted up to meet the top pieces still up there, drifting in the weed haze. The music swallowed me whole as I watched one of them go after the girl’s arm pit, jaw spreading wide, coming up under her shoulder to get the muscle and skin.

They fed on her body, pawed at what remained of her until she crumbled. The second she hit the floor, they lost interest and turned, their gazes moving as one, cutting through the crowd, stopping on the guy next to me. The first to reach him lunged with outstretched hands, grabbed the guy’s forearm and bit through his bicep. The guy’s head went forward, his eyes popped open. Teeth snapped into his arm, more long-hairs swarmed, stepping over the remains of the girl to dive for the fresh meat. The bitter iron scent of the blood filled my throat, made me stiff, made me understand this wasn’t just the high. The guy howled but the sound got cut short when a pair descended, started mauling his face, nipping at his checks, biting at his ears.

Beyond the feeding frenzy, the blonde girl and the guy lit up another joint. He took a hit, passed it to her, then shoved her forward into that wall of bodies. She pushed in, disappeared. The Ramones jammed on, ripping sounds into the air with sadistic energy. I stayed flat against the wall, breathing and being introduced, for the first time, to the will to live.

The cold bodies surrounding me crushed the remains of the guy with their teeth, their limbs jerking, hitting me. The guy’s skin hung in shreds, jiggling as his body shook. Blood spattered onto my Converses, a finger fell off, bounced off my knee and landed on the floor. One of them grabbed the guy’s foot, started on his knee, eating through the jeans. Hunk by hunk they devoured him until he collapsed. The last pulses of his nervous system made his remaining leg twitch.

Again, they lost interest. Again, their gazes moved as one, scanning the crowd.

There were only two with faces devoid of blood smears, absent chattering teeth.

Me.

And the stoner girl.

I curved my arm behind her and pulled her close. They saw us both, pivoted as one, snapping at the air as they came forward.

You know what people say about life going in slow motion when you think you’re about to die? About how you think a ton of shit all at once? It’s like your brain is totally focused for a split second and you can really, really think. That’s real. I knew exactly what I was doing when I shoved the stoner girl forward. She spun into the center of them, her brown Frye boots skidding on the wet red circle of footprints. The long-hairs staggered, closing in on her as the opening of I Wanna Be Sedated electrified the air. One of them grabbed a fist full of her hair, yanked her head back and went for her throat. Another took the center of her chest, biting through her ribcage.

The last of the mob tumbled toward her, creating an opening behind them. I saw a door off to the side. They spotted me when I bolted for it, but I got lucky. It was unlocked. The second I slammed the door closed, they hit it. Pounding. The door started to rattle.

On the other side of the wall of bodies, Joey yelled into the mic, Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

The door shook. It was the newly discovered will to live that made me look around, try to think. Then I saw it. A ladder in the corner propped up under a vent. The grill dangled from a single screw. Even now seven years later, hiding here in the Kisatchie swamp reliving that night and struggling to make sense of what I saw--and did, I can’t remember racing up the rungs. But I did.

Put me in a wheelchair, Joey begged the crowd. Get me to the show.

The door burst open, and they poured in, a bloody mess of arms and snapping jaws. I kicked the ladder on top of them as I disappeared into the ceiling. I scrambled along the shaft, working my way toward a patch if light, my hands and knees bouncing against the metal until I came to the opening.

Directly below, the remains of the stoner girl lie in a heap. One held a hand, gnawing at the fingers. The rest moved together, their gazes combing the crowd, stopping when they saw the blonde and her guy come through the wall of bodies guarding the circle. Trailing behind them was another couple, a guy in a faded denim jacket and a girl in one of those extra long sweaters. The girl had her arms up, shaking her arms and singing along. They went for her first. Less than a second later, his back was being torn apart by a half dozen of them.

Beyond tight the wall of bodies, up on stage, the guys jammed on.

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated.

Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated.

I scrambled on. Got out. Went back to my aunt’s house.

That night, and dozens after it, I told myself it was a bad trip. I thought the memories would fade, that the whole thing would just go away.

I was wrong about that.

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